One entry for this year's Slovakian hut design competition (an actual thing) took the notion of an isolated mountain dwelling to the logical extreme. The proposal from Czech architecture firm Atelier 8000 plops a giant shiny Rubik's cube of sorts in the middle of the High Tatras, an alpine mountain range on the northern border of Slovakia. The designers say the sharp-edged tilted form, covered in solar panels and punctured with glass windows, resembles the glints and reflections of a mountain lake or on thawing ice and blends right in with the glacial mountain backdrop.
The largely wooden structure would (if ever actually built) be made up of three sections: a snowmobile garage and ski storage room on the lowest level, a restaurant and deck on the ground floor, and sleeping areas on the upper levels. The insanity of its outer appearance belies a surprisingly believable interior—who, except those can't deal with vertigo, wouldn't want to play board games under huge, drastically-slanted window panels? Ultimately though, this entry didn't even crack the top three. But If futuristic mountain "huts" are your thing, head this way for more proposals.
· Competition Entry: Atelier 8000 Designs Cuboidal Mountain Hut for Slovakia's High Tatras [ArchDaily]
· All Architectural Craziness posts [Curbed National]
· All cabins in the woods [Curbed National]